Laura Speaks to Channel 4 on Equal Marriage

By Laura McLachlan, MSYP for LGBT Youth Scotland

I recently had the opportunity to go down to London to film with Channel 4 as part of their 4thought series from a young person’s perspective on Equal Marriage. This was a great day and also special that I got to put my views across on the campaigns that I have been working on for the past two years. The interview was about my views and what I thought about the religious bodies being opposed to same-sex marriage and also about how I felt about marriage as an individual from the LGBT community. As you will see from my interview I have always wanted a white wedding but also I see that if religious bodies are opposed to performing same-sex marriage then they should not be forced to do so. Check out my interview and the other interviews from the series by clicking here .

As a representative for LGBT National Youth Council we have been working on our campaign called M.E 2 (Marriage Equality 2) we have held a symposium in partnership with the Equality Network, held a photo petition on Equal Marriage and also a 10k run to raise awareness of Equal Marriage.

Becoming an MSYP was a great opportunity for me to get the young people’s voice’s heard and the main issue that was arising was Marriage Equality and when the ‘Love Equally’ campaign became SYP’s national campaign. I was so proud to be a part of both organisations fighting for the same cause. Love Equally has gained so much support around Scotland and also hit the headlines in many news rooms across Scotland and the publicity towards the campaign has been great in many areas clearly showing that young people’s voice’s are being listened too.

2011 ended with a massive push to ensure a massive positive response to the Scottish Government’s consultation on same-sex marriage and with over 50,000 responses I think we did a pretty decent job! 2012 kicked off with a busy start and I have been spreading the word a lot about Equal Marriage and also doing a few other bits and pieces for LGBT Youth Scotland.

In October I also spoke at a fringe event at the SNP Conference in Inverness alongside Austin Sheridan MSYP which was sponsored by Alyn Smith MEP. We spoke about the Love Equally campaign and I also presented a speech to represent young people’s views on the subject of marriage. We then had a question-and-answer session where the people got to ask us questions or give us there thoughts on marriage. The event was packed full of MSPs, journalists and members of the public and we had a few negative comments but all in all the event went really well and we got so many supporters from it.

The Love Equally and M.E 2 campaigns have brought Scotland to a place of better understanding of equality and what needs to change and hopefully in the not too distant future it will change. As an MSYP I hope that we all keep up the hard work and maintain the belief that Scotland will change, keep campaigning and educate people on the issues that young people face every day. Hope you are all excited for the Love Equally March on Valentine’s Day and of course the March sitting and hope to see you all there!

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on Friday, February 10th, 2012 at 3:22 pm and is filed under National, News.
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